BoxRec

Charley Burley was mentioned in one of the other threads here, So i glanced over his record once more .And it got me thinking,
What is the toughest year had by a fighter(match wise) ,level of competition and activity against said competition through one calendar year?
Heres Burleys 1942 as an example:
4x Holman Williams
2x Ezzard Charles
1x Loyd Marshall
17 fights in total that year.
Stepping in with Holman Williams 06-23 then 6 days later going inn with Ezzard Charles

There were harder years had by a few fighters but wich do you believe to be the toughest?

That is going to be hard to match. Here are some others to consider:

Sam Langford in 1916- Sam McVey 4x, Harry Wills 4x. 14 total fights.
Harry Greb in 1923- Tunney 2x, Loughran 2x, Johnny Wilson once. 17 total fights.
Henry Armstrong in 1938- Lou Ambers,Barney Ross, Baby Arizmendi, Chalky Wright, Cerfino Garcia. 14 total fights.
Fritzie Zivic in 1943- Jake LaMotta 3x,Beau Jack 2x, Bob Montgomery. 13 total fights.

Great topic.

Wow, great topic. If you had to gauge this by modern times....Baseball turns into Softball lol.

I'll be looking forward to more info coming from folks on this topic. A nuance would be ...who had a tough year in the last 10 years? I'm sure there is nothing even remotely comparable to those examples.

How about Harry Greb fighting 446 rounds in 1919?
thats 1338 minutes or 22,3 hours . of milling + training

this including among others 2 wins against Battling Levinsky and one over Gibbons

Some of Archie Moores years and Ezzard Charles years would be in this mix. Bivens too? Or was he already mentioned?

Stan Fitzgerald fought 4 times in ten days 5/3/60 to 5/13/60. In Buffalo, Philadelphia, Canada, and Ohio. He went 3-0-1, not against world beaters but a hell of a ten day whirl wind.

wsbuf wrote:Stan Fitzgerald fought 4 times in ten days 5/3/60 to 5/13/60. In Buffalo, Philadelphia, Canada, and Ohio. He went 3-0-1, not against world beaters but a hell of a ten day whirl wind.

That's not at all desirable employment, lol. At the end of the day, wouldn't you be better off with a nice Siberian Coal Mining gig?

Burley started 1942 with a 10 round KO of Shorty Hogue.

Hogue's 1941 was pretty impressive too (so much so that he was the number three ranked middleweight at the start of 42 - when Burley was still a welterweight).

Hogue met the following standout fighters:

Archie Moore (W)
Lloyd Marshall (W1 - L1)
Eddie Booker (W1 - D1 - L1)

He also beat Bobby Pacho, Andre Jesserun, Johnny Barbera and Young Gene Buffalo.

Sadly Shorty was never the same fighter after the Burley fight.

Holman Williams had a prety tough 1945:

Coca Kid (W1 - L1)
Joe Carter (W)
Charley Burley (W1)
Bert Lytell (W1 - L1)
Archie Moore (W1 - L1)
Aaron Tiger Wade (W)

Tough, talented fighters all.

BoxBuzz wrote:

wsbuf wrote:Stan Fitzgerald fought 4 times in ten days 5/3/60 to 5/13/60. In Buffalo, Philadelphia, Canada, and Ohio. He went 3-0-1, not against world beaters but a hell of a ten day whirl wind.

That's not at all desirable employment, lol. At the end of the day, wouldn't you be better off with a nice Siberian Coal Mining gig?

The funny thing is, he said he had a 2 week vacation from work so he wanted to get as many fights in as possible.

wsbuf wrote:

BoxBuzz wrote:

wsbuf wrote:Stan Fitzgerald fought 4 times in ten days 5/3/60 to 5/13/60. In Buffalo, Philadelphia, Canada, and Ohio. He went 3-0-1, not against world beaters but a hell of a ten day whirl wind.

That's not at all desirable employment, lol. At the end of the day, wouldn't you be better off with a nice Siberian Coal Mining gig?

The funny thing is, he said he had a 2 week vacation from work so he wanted to get as many fights in as possible.

So to this guy it was the equivalent of a Bahama vacation apparently? Or like being out for a bit of fishing. Never quite thought of Fishing and Boxing as kindred sports, though I do know a few folks who will rank these two sports at the top of their lists. On the other hand, it may have been the need to earn that almighty dubloon.

Jake Lamotta 1943 - Ray Robinson x2, Fritzie Zivic x3, 13 fights in total.

BoxBuzz wrote:
I'll be looking forward to more info coming from folks on this topic. A nuance would be ...who had a tough year in the last 10 years? I'm sure there is nothing even remotely comparable to those examples.

that would be a challenge to find anyone with more than two fights against other top fighters in one year. how bout the last 20 years?

The latest I could find was 1966 (44 years ago) for Carlos Ortiz. Nicolino Locche, Johnny Bizarro, Sugar Ramos, and Flash Elorde.

Four fights in total but against three IBHOF and one very good fighter Johnny Bizarro.

Not even close but still 1,000 times better that what we have today.

Man, looking at the past 20 years it's just shocking how you can't find anything near that level of activity, let alone against quality comp . . .shows you how the game has changed.

Holyfield fought Carlos DeLeon, James Tillis, Pinklon Thomas and Michael Dokes in a one year time span from 1988 to '89.

Tyson's 1987 included fights vs Smith, Thomas, Biggs and Tucker.

Probably the best I've found was Toney's 1991, which included wins over Sosa, Nunn, Johnson and the D vs McCallum.